Did you catch that title change? Sketch Week is now Sketch Support. I'm going back to my old school roots!
Years ago I created an online class and I used to run a blog, both called Sketch Support, that was all about using sketches and showing how to adapt them to your needs. When that blog came to an end, I condensed the concept down to a week and called it Sketch Week. Now, I'm not going back to a full month of posts about using sketches, but I am making some changes to fit in better with my new YouTube channel and the videos I want to do. I thought the name Sketch Support was little more fitting for that purpose.
I am beyond excited for this round of layouts based on the new free sketch! I ended up creating four layouts instead of my usual three because I had so many ideas. I'll be posting Monday-Thursday and hopefully will have a fun surprise on Friday.
It's going to be a fun week!
Here's the one-page sketch I have used for the starting point of all four layouts.
You can download the full sketch with measurements and placements here.
Supplies used - Cardstock: Bazzill; Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye; Wood letters: Woodpile Fun!; Alphabet stickers: My Little Shoebox; Hexagon punch: Fiskars; Star punches: Fiskars and Recollections; Metallic stars: unknown; Computer font: American Typewriter; Embroidery floss: DMC
Give me a hexagon punch and I am one happy girl!
I stayed pretty close to the sketch on this one for two reasons.
1. I love hexagons and I love how they frame the layout. This sketch was inspired by a layout I made for one of my monthly kit clubs. There was a hexagon paper included that I used to create a design similar to this. I've always wanted to re-create that look, so I did with this sketch and layout.
2. I wanted to show you how I arranged my hexagons and how you can adapt them to fit different sizes. I ended up using a punch that was slightly smaller than the hexagons on the sketch, so I had to make some adjustments.
So, first things first, let's look at how I added the hexagons to my cardstock base.
On the sketch there are 10 hexagons that fit between the top and bottom of the cardstock base. Because I was using a smaller hexagon I used 12.
I started on the right side of my layout and laid out a column of hexagons. I didn't adhere them yet, I just wanted to figure out my spacing and where exactly I needed these hexagons to be in order for their to be balance between all edges.
Next I added the top rows along the top of the cardstock base with the same general spacing between the hexagons as I have between the hexagons in the column going down the right side. Again, these are not adhered yet.
Looking at the photo above you can see that the position the hexagons are in is not going to create a balanced look on the cardstock base. What I mean by that is that I want the hexagons going down the sides to be a mirror of each other. I want the left side column to be positioned exactly as the right side.
To fix this and to create the balance I am looking for, I shifted all the hexagons to the right. Now I can see that to have balance I need the starting column on both the left and right sides to be a 1/2 piece of a hexagon.
Now that I have that balance of hexagons figured out I can actually start adhering them.
To make things really easy, I cut the hexagons in half for the sides and used one piece on the left side and the other piece on the right side. If you look at the bottom left piece and the top right piece, they are the same. I flipped the order of colors so that I could use each piece and not waste any.
You can use this same method to adapt the design to whatever size of hexagon you want to use. Once you have the first frame up, the rest is easy to add.
I mixed in a few stitched hexagons as well.
I used a punched hexagon as template to trace around.
A quick little stitching tip:
When stitching around a shape like a hexagon where you have points/corners with equal sides. I will pierce my holes in the corners first, and then use the same amount of holes on each side.
It sounds like an obvious thing, that you would want the same amount of holes on each side, but sometimes it's hard, especially if you are new to stitching, to gauge the distance between the your holes in order for you to land on a corner or point and still have that equal spacing. It's just an easy little trick to ensure that you always end up with a hole perfectly positioned on that corner.
Now that we've got that part taken care of, let's get to the sketch variations!
Variation #1 - Using more photos.
I just so happened to have three 2-1/2 x 3-1/2" wallet-size photos sitting on my table that were just begging to be used on a layout. Anytime you are using a sketch and want to adapt the photos. Maybe you want to use more or maybe you want to use less. As long as you are filling generally the same space, anything will work.
A big plus to this sketch is that you really have a lot of room to adapt your photos to fit what you want to use. I think as long as you stay inside the frame of hexagons, you can add as many or as less of photos as you want.
My title stayed in the same place, below the photos.
And my journaling stayed in the same place above the photos.
That's it for day 1! Be sure to check back tomorrow for another layout based on this same sketch.
LOVE THIS!!!